Unconditionally skip .pyc creation to see if that's the cause

Author: zooba

Lib/importlib/_bootstrap_external.py

@@ -821,6 +821,8 @@ def get_code(self, fullname):
         hash_based = False
         check_source = True
         try:
+            # DO NOT MERGE - just testing unconditionally skipping this path
+            raise NotImplementedError()
             bytecode_path = cache_from_source(source_path)
         except NotImplementedError:
             bytecode_path = None
@@ -902,10 +904,7 @@ def __init__(self, fullname, path):
         """Cache the module name and the path to the file found by the
         finder."""
         self.name = fullname
-        if isinstance(path, str):
-            self.path = sys.intern(path)
-        else:
-            self.path = path
+        self.path = path
 
     def __eq__(self, other):
         return (self.__class__ == other.__class__ and

Python/sysmodule.c

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 // DO NOT MERGE
-#define TAG NULL
+//#define TAG NULL
 
 
 /* System module */
@@ -3604,6 +3604,13 @@ make_impl_info(PyObject *version_info)
     if (res < 0)
         goto error;
 
+// DO NOT MERGE
+#ifdef MS_WINDOWS
+    if (GetEnvironmentVariableW(L"PYNOCACHETAG", NULL, 0)) {
+        _PySys_ImplCacheTag = NULL;
+    }
+#endif
+
     value = _PySys_ImplCacheTag
         ? PyUnicode_FromString(_PySys_ImplCacheTag)
         : Py_NewRef(Py_None);